In the philosophy of religion, 'de jure objections' cover a wide variety of
arguments for the conclusion that theistic belief is rationally impermissible, whether or not God exists. 'Modal Calvinism' counters these objections by proposing that 'if God exists, God
would ensure that theistic belief is rationally compelling on a global scale', a modal conditional that is compatible with atheism. In this article Lok-Chi Chan and Shawn Standefer respond to this modal Calvinist argument by examining it through the lenses of probability, modality, and logic—particularly, with possible world semantics, Bayesian reasoning, and paraconsistent models. After examining various forms of the argument, we argue that none can compel atheists to believe that serious theistic possibilities worth considering would involve the purported divine measure. If successful, these arguments eliminate any significant threat from Alvin Plantinga's celebrated Warranted Christian Belief and block arguments that relativize reason by appealing to the presence of supernatural entities.
Added Series 3, Episode 4 of The UnShaw Podcast YouTube interview My Mormon Experience: A Discussion about Mormonism with Ryan Erwin (2025) by Robert Shaw and Ryan Erwin to the Videos category on the Secular Web. In this discussion with former Mormon Ryan Erwin, Kiosk Editorial Review Committee member and Secular Web author Robert Shaw […]
In this discussion with former Mormon Ryan Erwin, Kiosk Editorial Review Committee member and Secular Web author Robert Shaw recounts his unexpected deep dive into Mormonism—from scripture study classes and church services, to late-night conversations with missionaries and personal reflections on faith, doubt, and belonging. Along the way, Shaw visits a local temple, grapples with the Church's complex history, and explores what it means to believe in something that many argue defies reason. Shaw is joined by Ryan Erwin, a former Latter-day Saint who grew up in the heart of Utah's Mormon culture. Together, they explore why so many young people raised in the LDS Church are now walking away—and what they're walking toward. It's a thoughtful, personal, and at times surprising exploration of one of America's most distinctive religious traditions.
Added Series 3, Episode 3 of The UnShaw Podcast YouTube interview The Animals Went in Two by Two: A Discussion about Ark Encounter with Mark Alsip & Nick Cowan (2025) by Robert Shaw to the Videos category on the Secular Web. In this discussion with returning guest Mark Alsip and young-Earth creationist Nick Cowan, Kiosk […]
In this discussion with returning guest Mark Alsip and young-Earth creationist Nick Cowan, Kiosk Editorial Review Committee member and Secular Web author Robert Shaw explores the life-sized replica of Noah's Ark in Williamstown, Kentucky and Mark Alsip's recent protest there, as well as the the broader implications for reason, religion, and the public purse.
Added Series 3, Episode 2 of The UnShaw Podcast YouTube interview The Myth of an Afterlife: A Conversation with Keith Augustine (2025) by Robert Shaw and Keith Augustine to the Videos category on the Secular Web. In conversation with Internet Infidels Executive Director Keith Augustine, Kiosk Editorial Review Committee member and Secular Web author Robert […]
In conversation with Internet Infidels Executive Director Keith Augustine, Kiosk Editorial Review Committee member and Secular Web author Robert Shaw explores the reasons to think that biological death ends human consciousness and responds to arguments commonly put forward by afterlife proponents.
Added Series 3, Episode 1 of The UnShaw Podcast YouTube interview Borrowed Bodies, Lingering Minds: A Conversation with Simon Bown (2025) by Robert Shaw to the Videos category on the Secular Web. In conversation with past-life hypnotherapist Simon Bown, Kiosk Editorial Review Committee member and Secular Web author Robert Shaw explores the limits of identity […]
In conversation with past-life hypnotherapist Simon Bown, Kiosk Editorial Review Committee member and Secular Web author Robert Shaw explores the limits of identity and time, whether the mind continues on after the death of the body, and what Bown takes to be the evidence of consciousness beyond death, particularly reincarnation, from hypnotic regressions to children who recall ostensible past lives. Are we just matter in motion—or are our minds part of a longer thread?
Added Briefly Scrutinizing Biblical Miracles (2025) by John W. Loftus to the Argument from Miracles page under Arguments for the Existence of a God in the Modern Documents section of the Secular Web Library. Miracle reports are often offered as corroboration for the Gospel message of salvation. For example, “doubting” Thomas was admonished for questioning […]
Miracle reports are often offered as corroboration for the Gospel message of salvation. For example, "doubting" Thomas was admonished for questioning reports that Jesus was raised from the dead: "Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed." And in other parts of the New Testament, faith in what one has not seen for himself is often praised: "We walk by faith, not by sight." Since an argument from the Bible assumes the soundness of an argument from miracles, if the latter fail, then all religions grounded in the biblical text are undercut.
Good Friday and Easter Sunday bookend the three holiest days on the Christian calendar. Millions of Christians travel to Jerusalem to see the sites where Jesus' crucifixion, burial, and resurrection supposedly took place. This explores the ten verses in Mark that discuss the specific period between Jesus' death and burial (Mark 15:37-46). The text describes how, in a little over three hours, a Joseph of Arimathea obtained custody of Jesus' body, removed it from the cross, prepared it for burial, and then placed it in a tomb before sunset. Based on modern scholarship and a granular reading of Mark, the essay examines the question: was there enough time for Joseph of Arimathea to bury Jesus before sunset?
Added the ninety-eighth Freethinker Podcast YouTube sixth Interview with Gutsick Gibbon on Evolution (2025) to the Freethinker Podcast page under Resources on the Secular Web. Check out Freethinker Podcast host Edouard Tahmizian’s nearly half-hour interview with biological anthropology doctoral candidate Gutsick Gibbon (Erika) on problems with the feasibility of taking the biblical account of Noah’s […]
Check out Freethinker Podcast host Edouard Tahmizian's nearly half-hour interview with biological anthropology doctoral candidate Gutsick Gibbon (Erika) on problems with the feasibility of taking the biblical account of Noah's Ark literally, Kent Hovind's creationist apologetics, and the biological evidence that animals have developed new information over time. The interlocutors canvass how accelerated nuclear decay poses problems for young Earth creationism, how many animals could have fit on Noah's Ark if we treat that account as if it were historical, the infeasibility of surviving daily life on the imagined Ark, Kent Hovind's most annoying creationist argument, and how natural selection acting on random mutations could have produced new genetic information. Tune in for a lively overview of the biological facts that tell against creationist apologists' preferred narratives!
Added Review of A Lawyer Looks at the Trials of Jesus: Using Legal Apologetics to Defend the Gospel Story (2025) by Robert G. Miller to the Resurrection page under Christianity and the Christian Apologetics and Apologists page under Christianity in the Modern Documents section of the Secular Web Library. In A Lawyer Looks at the […]
In A Lawyer Looks at the Trials of Jesus: Using Legal Apologetics to Defend the Gospel Story, Christian legal apologist Matt Vega attempts to defend the Gospel account of Jesus' resurrection by arguing that the presence of twenty-five legal errors in Jesus' Jewish and Roman trials prove that the execution of Jesus was that of an innocent man. He then goes on to argue that, when combined with other 'facts,' this in turn 'proves' that Jesus miraculously resurrected from the dead. In this review retired attorney Robert G. Miller argues that Vega's arguments simply do not show any of the key points that Vega claims to show. Miller concludes that Vega's book only superficially addresses traditional legal apologetics, and furthermore that it doesn't even begin to establish either Jesus' innocence of the accusations leveled against him, or that he was resurrected from the dead.
In this article Reinhard von Richter investigates the existential dilemmas arising from the literal adoption of salvific exclusivism and the doctrine of eternal torment, as upheld in traditional versions of Christianity and Islam: that is, that a Hell of eternal misery is the final destination of those who fail to achieve salvation. Through the analysis of various scenarios—which range from antinatalism and the dilemmas faced by physicians and politicians to family conflicts and extreme situations involving world leaders—the von Richter demonstrates how the attempt to minimize eternal suffering can lead to paradoxical and morally disturbing choices. This only underscores the horror and existential absurdity of these conceptions of reality.
This National Day of Reason Celebrate 30 Years of The Secular Web! Humanity Has Never Needed Critical Thinking So Badly If you find our Library, Kiosk, Forum, Blog, Podcast, Secular Web Kids site, or Publications useful, please pitch in to help keep the Secular Web online today!
Added Internet Infidels Theme—Sheet music for Piano | Flat (2025) by Edouard Tahmizian to the Videos category on the Secular Web. Our most excellent Vice President & Social Media Manager Edouard Tahmizian has crafted a theme track for Internet Infidels that is new and improved! Check it out!
Added Reminiscence (Original)—dedicated to Alexandra Botez (youtube.com) (2025) by Edouard Tahmizian to the Videos category on the Secular Web. Tune in as our illustrious Vice President & Social Media Manager Edouard Tahmizian (and contributor to the book A Drop of Reason: Essays from the Secular Web) plays a jazzy piece called Reminiscence, a tribute to […]
Added Reminiscence – Sheet music for Piano | Flat (2025) by Edouard Tahmizian to the Videos category on the Secular Web. Our extraordinary Vice President & Social Media Manager Edouard Tahmizian (with a chapter featured in A Drop of Reason: Essays from the Secular Web) has come out with a new awesome tune called Reminiscence. […]
Added Review of Naturalism and Religion: A Contemporary Philosophical Investigation (2025) by Glenn Branch to the Naturalism page under Nontheism in the Modern Documents section of the Secular Web Library. In this article National Center for Science Education deputy director Glenn Branch reviews Graham Oppy’s scholarly and meticulous, yet still accessible, Naturalism and Religion. After […]
In this article National Center for Science Education deputy director Glenn Branch reviews Graham Oppy's scholarly and meticulous, yet still accessible, Naturalism and Religion. After defining naturalism as the thesis that all causal entities and causal powers are natural, and that the best means for identifying those entities and powers is the scientific method, Oppy goes on to define a religion as a belief system that, among other things, is committed to the existence of non-natural causal entities and/or powers, and thus is incompatible with naturalism. As might be expected, Oppy argues that naturalistic big pictures balance the virtues of scientific theories best given all of the available evidence. At mid-way Oppy assesses well-known theistic arguments against naturalism from Alvin Plantinga and Michael Rea and then goes on to consider general Thomistic critiques. The book then turns to the extent to which science does, and does not, conflict with religion. After assessing a number of arguments against the explanatory power of naturalism, the final chapter highlights the combination of the minimal ontological commitments and great explanatory power of naturalism: we know that natural causal entities and powers exist, but have little evidential reason to posit the existence of anything more.
Simon Greenleaf was a great legal scholar and the author of a seminal book of legal apologetics titled The Testimony of the Evangelists. Numerous apologists tell variations of an inspiring story about how evidence for Jesus' resurrection supposedly convinced this eminent professor to convert from atheism to Christianity, but in this essay Robert G. Miller shows that the story has no basis in fact. In addition, Miller reports that he contacted a number of apologists who have spread this urban legend, and provided them with the evidence demonstrating that it is not true. Although many honest and sincere Christians deleted or corrected previous misinformation about the legend, the most popular apologists (e.g., Lee Strobel, Josh McDowell, and Norman Geisler) continue to promote the falsehood
Added A Drop of Reason: Essays from the Secular Web (30th Anniversary Edition) (2025) edited by David Misialowski to the Internet Infidels Publications page on the Secular Web. In 1995, the Secular Web made its debut online with the goal of promoting a naturalist view of reality, without recourse to God or gods or any […]
In 1995, the Secular Web made its debut online with the goal of promoting a naturalist view of reality, without recourse to God or gods or any supernatural realm. Now, thirty years on, the site is still going strong, and during that period it has assembled an impressive collection of scholarly essays from contributors. Now, to commemorate the site's 30th anniversary, we have assembled a number of those essays in book form: A Drop of Reason. Please enjoy this stellar collection of critical thinking.
Added In the Darkness (Piano Music) (2025), written by Edouard Tahmizian and performed by Petrina Wong, to the Secular Web. Our amazing vice president has released a new track played by another professional pianist called In The Darkness. Her amazing tempo really allows this piece to sound cool and edgy!
Added A King’s Tale (2025), written by Edouard Tahmizian and performed by Christie Peery Skousen, to the Secular Web. Check out a professional pianist’s rendition of our lovely vice president Edouard Tahmizian’s A King’s Tale!
Added The Forlorn Maiden—Sheet music for Piano | Flat (2025) by Edouard Tahmizian to the Videos category on the Secular Web. Check out the vice president’s new work The Forlorn Maiden. He has dedicated it to his crush, who is Koko from IZNA. Be sure to check out A King’s Tale as well!
Added Is Atheism a Religious Faith? A Definitive Answer (2025) by John W. Loftus to the Faith and Reason page, as well as the Christian Apologetics and Apologists and Christian Worldview pages under Christianity, in the Modern Documents section of the Secular Web Library. What is faith, atheism, and agnosticism? How should these words be […]
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